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Pavel Durov cannot be trusted. He has built his life on lies, created an opaque, highly complex network of companies, and developed a relationship with the Russian regime that is full of inconsistencies, among other things. For starters, he claimed for years that Telegram's headquarters were in Berlin, Germany, when they never were.
Bull. Shit. If you break the existing laws, by insulting or slandering someone, you might have to face the consequences.
But I guess it is easy to point the finger at Germany and conjure the specter of the fascists if you live in Dubai, come from Russia, and created 2 of the biggest troll-mills ever. Would not want to rattle the cage too much, would we.
This is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. And he’s totally correct. The Internet was much better before the 2000s and the social media era. And when the people who remember it aren’t around, those remaining won’t have any idea that they’re missing something. He’s also totally correct in calling out the obvious lunge towards authoritarianism from European democracies - this must be stopped immediately: > Once-free…
> The Internet was much better before the 2000s An embarrassing fiction, it was junk. More people are on VPNs now than were on the internet pre-2000 It's true there were ideas and principals in a wild west the younger generation will never know was the default. You could go out and have a battle with Injun's or see a lynching but it was 99.9% dust and hard work herding cows. The internet now is a megacity, everything…
>Yes Pavel and this is 100% correct.
a lunge he happily helped support with telegram and vkontakte as long as the money rolled it. Poor rich guy.
It should be noted that Durov does not criticize Russia, his country of citizenship and the center of much of his userbase. The Russian internet is far more controlled than the Western internet, with penalties up to and including arrest and death for expressing the wrong views. Russia also is actively invading Europe and sponsoring vast network of troll accounts which poison the discourse on the internet in Western c…
> That cynicism is one the explicit goals of Russian propaganda. I don’t need Russia to tell me to be cynical of the western political situation.
I think that is what Pavel does. Look at how he mentions chat control, but not that it was turned down and revoked. Then directly goes on to criticize Germany (who shut down chat control) for being anti freedom. He doesn't say anything that is wrong. Due to their history, Germany does not allow you to say anything you want about their politicians, deny history or praise nazism. It's that same history that makes Germany such strong proponents for privacy though, because they've lived the Surveillance state before it was cool. That is what has turned Germany is a privacy haven on par with Sweden, but where does Pavel ever mention that?
For that is the main issue with people like Pavel. It's not that the message is wrong. The internet has become mainly controlled by a couple of SoMe companies which are controlled by the aristocracy. It's that he polarizes it, but only against the west. I get why he wouldn't criticize Russia even if he wanted to, but he's certainly not walking the walk, is he? The fact that he spreads the message on X just makes it even more hypocritical. (If you think that part about X is me being "woke", please keep in mind that Twitter banned Trump.)
It should be noted that Durov does not criticize Russia, his country of citizenship and the center of much of his userbase. The Russian internet is far more controlled than the Western internet, with penalties up to and including arrest and death for expressing the wrong views. Russia also is actively invading Europe and sponsoring vast network of troll accounts which poison the discourse on the internet in Western c…
> Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet
No you can criticize all you want. You just can’t insult them. Free speech is different in Germany than in the US. Insulting people isn’t covered by free speech.
Whether or not that is a good thing is up for debate, but Durov’s statement is plain wrong.
I share Durov’s disappointment about where the internet is heading. But I think it’s hypocritical to talk about freedom of speech issues in Western Europe while ignoring similar or worse restrictions in China, Russia, or Dubai, where he lives. It’s similar to Musk’s approach — when Twitter is shut down in Brazil, it’s a freedom of speech violation, but having a Tesla factory in China suddenly makes that problem disap…
Well, Russia has basically never had freedom of speech, except for a brief period in the 1990s, so it contributes nothing to his thesis in the tweet that "once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures."
As I understand it, Durov doesn’t agree with your statement — you can check point 5 of his 2014 manifesto [1]
[1] https://globalvoices.org/2014/03/13/pavel-durovs-seven-reaso...
It should be noted that Durov does not criticize Russia, his country of citizenship and the center of much of his userbase. The Russian internet is far more controlled than the Western internet, with penalties up to and including arrest and death for expressing the wrong views. Russia also is actively invading Europe and sponsoring vast network of troll accounts which poison the discourse on the internet in Western c…
Exactly and what he writes about Germany is wrong: > Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet No you can criticize all you want. You just can’t insult them. Free speech is different in Germany than in the US. Insulting people isn’t covered by free speech. Whether or not that is a good thing is up for debate, but Durov’s statement is plain wrong.